The free market is bullshit, that's why it won't work. There's no such thing, and there never will be. Even if we started from scratch, a few huge companies would still hold all the power. You think having no regulations on business would protect small businesses? Keep on drinking the crazy kool-aid.

Of course it wouldn't protect small business. It would also not protect large business and that's the real problem with regulatory practices anyway. The eventually provide disproportionately large measures of protection for large banking entities. That is the point I've already made in this thread.

Unless you demonstrate that you are actually reading what people are posting and come up with something salient in response, I don't think there's any reason to continue this. Just saying it's "bullshit" and not demonstrating why is completely ignorant.

Have you studied history at all? All what you've said has already been proven false.

By your own admission (and I agree with you), there has never been the sort of free market round which this discussion is centered.

So, we agree that the conditions necessary to validate/invalidate that hypothesis have never existed. Therefore, conclude that what I said has NOT been proven false.

This is not to suggest that I am infallible (I'm not) nor that the argument is unfalsifiable, nor that the argument cannot be invalidated (maybe it can). But if you're interested in discourse you're going to have to do better than sloppily unsupported assertions that contradict your previous comments.

Unless you demonstrate that you are actually reading what people are posting and come up with something salient in response, I don't think there's any reason to continue this. Just saying it's "bullshit" and not demonstrating why is completely ignorant.

I mean, I don't want to sound like a dick, and that probably does sound like it. But just saying the equivalent of "nuh uh" in so many words does not do anyone any good. There are merits and flaws to the solutions being suggested. I'm interested in discussing those, not just standing across from each other and flinging poo.

well yeah I'm sure I lived off of 8k a year also as a college student - not including tuition and whatnot. Life is a little bit different when you're a student.

I made 18k, paid for an apartment and college. So, what about people who didn't get to go to college? They're suppose to make more than 18k without an education or trade skills?

One solution, a terrible one, is to simply jack up the taxes on the wealthy. You make more, you pay more. Life isn't fair, get over it, you're still rich.

Or we could boost the earnings of the bottom 50%. That would require the top earners, who we are assuming are the business owners, to increase wages. That would cost them money, sure, but it would save them from having to make up for the taxes the people on the bottom don't even qualify to pay. In the end, it's a more stable economic decision. However, it requires government intervention in terms of minimum wage and of course people will complain that it hurts job creation incentive.

We live in a country which requires a balance to survive, just like everything on this planet. We have the top 2% earning half our nation's income. That is not a balance. That is not sustainable.